Onward, still onward, swept the fiery bosom of destruction. The
hydrants were exhausted--the engines had long been frozen up with their
hose. Westward, the south Dutch Church, which ash been made the hasty
depository of stores of precious goods, was inflames, which threatened
to extend to Broad Street throughout. At this supreme moment a man was
caught setting fire to the house at the corner of Stone and Broad
streets. Was he a maniac or maddened by liquor? The excited citizens
paused not to inquire, but seizing this fiend inhuman shape lynched him
on the spot. On the south a desperate struggle was made at Hanover
Square. The firemen has turned their energies to saving property. In
that large space was piled an immense amount of goods, thought to be
perfectly safe in that spot. There was accumulated the stock of all the
French stores, a mass of silks, satins, laces, cartons of dresses,
capes, cashmere shawls, and the richest kind of fancy articles, forming
a little mountain sixty feet wide by twenty-five feet in height, or
nearly one hundred feet square. The large East India warehouse of Peter
Remsen & Co., situated on the northeast corner of Hanover Square,
was at this moment an object of absorbing interest. It was filled with a
full stock of valuable goods. Before the fire reached it goods were cast
out I of the windows in the upper stories into the street, and with
merchandise from the lower floors were piled up with the rest of the
large mass in the square. But the warring flames came swiftly on. Just
as the goods were stacked a gust of flame, like a streak of lightning,
came from the Remsen building, and shooting across the square, blown by
the strong wind, set fire to the entire mass. In a few minutes, the
costly pile was reduced to cinders, it disappeared like figures in a
dissolving view, and then the fire was communicated to the houses
opposite. Notwithstanding the presence of this mighty furnace, the cold
was so intense that the firemen were compelled to take the fine blankets
saved, and cutting a hole through them, convert them into temporary
cloaks. In this attire, they were seen at daybreak dragging home their
engines, many of the men so exhausted by fatigue that they were asleep
as they walked. One entire company, thus, accoutred, had artificial
wreaths and bunches of artificial flowers of the richest kind in their
caps, taken from the wreck of matter, and presenting a very singular
contrast with their begrimed daces and jaded appearance.

It is said the illumination was so great that it was observed at
places a hundred miles distant. At one time turpentine which took fire
on the wharf ran down into the water and floated off, making a blazing
sea many hundreds of yards square. The shipping in the docks of the East
River was endangered, and saved only by strenuous exertions and its
removal into the stream. The brig, "Powhatten," lying
between Murray's Wharf and Coenties Slip, caught fire, but the flames
were soon extinguished. No. 33 Engine was run upon the deck of a brig,
in order to take the water with her suction, and played into No. 2,
which gave her water to No. 13. This last engine (Mr. Zophar Mills's),
as already stated, played in the fire at Wall Street. The members of no.
33 Engine, according to Mr. Charles Forrester, "had their own fun
on the deck of the brig. The cook on the vessel made a fire in the
galley, and six men would get in there, and shut the doors, and when
they got thawed out a member outside would place his fire cap over the
pipe and smoke them out; then a new set would go in, and so it was kept
up through the night.

The engine did not cease working until daylight, when she stopped for
a few seconds, and upon the orders to start again, she was found so
frozen that they could get no water through her. The company was then
ordered home to thaw out."

To depict the scenes of that awful night would require a volume in
itself. The surging crowd, the struggle of the police to restrain them,
the thousand and one pieces of property rescued from the burning or
endangered building, and carried hither and thither, the innumerable
thefts, the shouts of the assembled thousands, the fights ending in
bloodshed, the roar of the flames, and the hoarse creaking of the
laboring engines no pen can do adequate justice to. It was a saturnalia
for the lawless of the populace. Men, and women, too, seized on the
cases of wine and barrels of liquor that was thrown about anywhere and
everywhere. It is supposed that a thousand baskets of champagne were
broken and destroyed, the tops being unceremoniously knocked off, and
the contents drunk by the maddened throngs surrounding the fire. An
immense quantity of baskets of champagne were seen floating in the
docks, and cheese and provisions were scattered there and about the
slips. It was soon seen that to save the rest of the city several
buildings must be blown up to check the progress of the fire. James
Gulick, the hero of the "June Bugs," who was then chief
engineer, decided to blow up the houses that were immediately
threatened. Chief Engineer Gulick sent for some keg of gunpowder, but a
sufficiency could not be obtained in the city--not being allowed as an
article of merchandise. Other messengers were sent in hot haste to the
fort on Governor's Island, but in vain. Though a most bitter night, a
navy barge was dispatched, against a head tide, to the magazine at Red
Hook, a distance probably of four or five miles from the Yard for a
supply of powder.

Then when the first faint streaks of dawn were struggling with the
unnatural redness in the sky, a corps of marines arrived with some
powder, and the demolition of the buildings began, but it was not until
noon of Thursday that the necessary break was made at Coenties Slip. It
was truly remarkable, the characteristic sangfroid with which the
sailors of Captain Mix's party carried about, wrapped up in a blanket or
a pea-jacket, as it might happen, kegs and barrels of gunpowder, amid a
constant shower of fire, as they followed their officers to the various
buildings indicated for destruction. On the noth side the extraordinary
strength of the Wall Street buildings--many of them resisting firmly the
assaults of the destroyer, and none of the walls crumbing and falling
into the street, as is too generally the case--did more for the safety
of that part of the city than anything within the power of human effort.
For hours it was doubtful whether the flames could be resisted here,
and, if not, there was little hope that they could be before reaching
Maiden Lane.

The advent of the marines and sailors from the navy Yard had a
beneficial effect upon the crowds. The marines, eighty in number, under
command of Captain Walker, formed a complete chain of sentinels along
South Street, from the Fulton Ferry to Wall Street, and up Wall to the
Exchange. They kept their posts all night, and thus afforded great
protection to the property exposed. Great prices were offered and given
for help in removing goods. One merchant is said to have purchased a
horse and cart on the spot for five hundred dollars with which he
succeeded in saving his stock. Leary, the hatter, in the midst of the
fire gave away hats to any fellow who would help him remove a bundle. To
one fellow he gave a hat who handed it back "What's the
matter?" "It doesn't fit." was the saucy reply.
"Give me one to fit, if you are giving away hats." Many of the
merchants, in the excitement of removing their goods, gave away blankets
or anything to poor people who aided them. One poor man had removed
several valuable packages to a place of safety. "Here's a coat, a
pair of pantaloons, and a blanket for you." aid the merchant,
handing over the articles.

The violence of the gale continued all night. Burning embers were
carried across the East River to Brooklyn, and set fire to the roof of a
house which, however, was speedily extinguished. Mr. John A. Meyers, of
One Hindered and Fourth Street, near Ninth Avenue, who celebrated his
golden wedding with four generations on February 8,1886, was then living
in a farmhouse on the site of the present Joralemon Street, Brooklyn,
said that on the following morning he found the space around his
dwelling black with embers flown over from the great fire. The grandest
and most inspiring views were from Brooklyn, Weehawken, and Staten
Island. Thence the whole city seemed in one awful sheet of flame. The
merchants, aided by the firemen and the well-disposed citizens, devoted
themselves to removing to places of supposed safety such property as
could in their haste be got together. With this intent an immense
quantity of goods was placed in the Merchants' Exchange in Wall Street
and in the Reformed Dutch church in Garden Street, where it was presumed
they would be secure. But in a short time these buildings with their
contents were reduced to ashes. The Exchange was one of the largest
edifices in the city, situated on the south side of Wall Street, and
embracing one hundred and fifteen feet of the front between William and
Hanover Streets. It was three stories high, exclusive of the basement,
which was considerably elevated. Its southwest front was of Westchester
marble. The first and second stories of the Ionic order, from the Temple
of Minerva Pallas, at Prigue, In Iona; a recessed elliptical portico of
forty feet wide introduced in front. A screen of four columns and two
antae, each thirty feet and three feet four inches in diameter above the
base, composed of a single block of marble, extended across the foot of
the portico, supporting an entablature of six feet in height, on which
rested the third story, making a height of sixty feet from the ground.
The principal entrance to the rotunda and exchange room was by a flight
of ten marble steps, with a pedestal at each end. On ascending to the
portico three doors opened to offices. The vestibule was of the Ionic
order, from the little Ionic Temple of Illysus. The exchange room, which
was the rotunda, was seventy-five feet long, fifty-five feet wide, and
forty-five feet high, to which were attached four principal rooms, and
in the rear of the rotunda another, used for the auction sales of real
estate, shipping, and stocks. The building was begun on the first of
April, 1825, and occupied twenty-seven months in its erection, having
first been occupied in July, 1827. The plan was that of the architect,
Mr. E. Thompson.

This structure long resisted the flames. It did not catch until 2
o'clock on Thursday morning. The end in which the spire pointed to
heaven, in the background, was the spot where it was fired. It extended
from that point to the cupola and dome. In the centre of the rotunda was
erected, by the liberality of the merchants of the city, a statue of
General Alexander Hamilton, sculpted by Ball Hughes. The statue was
about 15 feet high, including the case on which it was elevated, and
chiseled from the whitest marble. The figure represented him holding a
scroll in the left hand, resting on the thigh, and a scarf partly
covering the body. For a long time this splendid statue was seen
towering brightly amidst the sea of flames that dashed against its
crackling base, seeming to cast a mournful glance on the terrific scene.
About four o'clock the magnificent dome caved in with an awful crash,
one lurid glare ascended to heaven, and then the marble effigy of
Hamilton fell nobly, perishing under the crush of the edifice of which
it had been, as it were, the tutelary genius. But on gallant effort had
been made to save it by a young officer from the Navy Yard with a party
of four or five blue jackets. They had actually succeeded in partly
removing it from the pedestal when the warning cry was uttered that the
roof was about to fall, and they had to seek safety in flight.

Another fine sight was the handsome church of the Rev. Dr. Matthews,
in Garden Street. For along while it withstood the mass of flames in
their course towards Broad Street. The church possessed a famous organ.
Many and many a solemn dirge had been played upon it at the burial of
the dead, and now, the holy temple being on fire, some one commenced
performing upon that organ its own funeral dirge and continued it till
the lofty ceiling was in a blaze. The music ceased, and in a short time
the beautiful edifice, with its noble instrument and immense quantities
of goods stored inside and out, were all irrecoverably gone, nothing
escaping save the long-sleeping dust and bones of the buried dead. Above
the church the bright gold ball and star on the highest point of the
spire gleamed brilliantly, and still, while they were both shining on
the deep blue concave with a n intensity of splendor which attracted
general remark, gave one surge and fell in all their glory into the heap
of chaos beneath them.

On the following day the heart of the city seemed to have ceased to
beat. Of business there was none; New York was stricken as with
paralysis. From five to ten thousand persons had been thrown out of
employment, and universal sorry prevailed. The people gathered iun their
thousands around the smoking ruins, and sadly thought of the many
families whose daily bread was gone. Swiftly flew the news to other
cities, and sympathy of a practical kind was the response. The same
locomotive that early on Thursday morning carried the tidings of the
fire to Newark brought to the city within an hour afterwards the New
Jersey Engines, which at once went to work. The conduct of the
Philadelphia firemen was noble. Immediately on the receipt of the
intelligence from New York 400 of them organized themselves and started
to come on. Unfortunately, by the breaking down of one of the cars on
the railroad, a large number of them Werke obliged to go back, and some
arrived early on Saturday morning, and the remainder followed with as
little delay as possible. Stations were assigned them amid the ruins,
and they went to work with great spirit and excellent results. On the
succeeding nights, patrol duty was done by the Third and Ninth Regiments
and the light infantry companies. Civic patrols were also formed in
several wards, and thus property to a great amount was saved from
depredation. Large quantities of merchandise, carried off in boats on
Wednesday night were secreted on the Long Island and Jersey shores and
in the upper wards of the city.

The scene at Police headquarters was indeed heartrending. The squalid
misery of a greater part of those taken with the goods ion their
possession, the lies and prevarication's to which they resorted to
induce the magistrates not to commit them to prison, their screeching
and wailing when they found they must relinquish the splendid prizes
they made during the raging of the fire, and the numbers in which they
were brought by the police and military, exceeded any scene of a similar
kind on record. For the previous three days and nights every place
capable of detention was crammed with these miserable objects--sometimes
as many as one hundred being in confinement at the same moment. Hundred
were discharged without detention or other punishment than merely taking
from them their plunder; and but very few of the whole number, even
those who had stolen hundreds if dollars' worth, could be convicted, in
consequence of the impossibility of the identification of the property
stolen.